Luxury Latin America: Peru, Chile and Bolivia

The flight from Lima to Cusco takes just over an hour and crosses the Andes at altitude. Rather than heading straight into Cusco at 3,400 meters, the itinerary drops into the Sacred Valley first, sitting at a more manageable 2,800 meters and giving the body time to adjust before the main event.

The Inca sites at Pisac and Ollantaytambo are among the most significant in Peru, the markets are genuine rather than tourist-facing, and the landscape of terraced hillsides and snow-capped peaks above is unlike anywhere else in South America. Belmond Rio Sagrado sits on the valley floor with the Urubamba river running past it.

From Ollantaytambo, the Belmond Hiram Bingham train winds through the cloud forest to Aguas Calientes in 1920s Pullman carriages, with a bar car and kitchen turning out proper food for the journey. It is one of the great short rail journeys in South America.

Built by the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the 15th century and unknown to the outside world until 1911, Machu Picchu sits at 2,430 meters above sea level with mountain peaks above and the Urubamba river far below.

The stonework has survived six centuries of Andean weather without mortar. Arriving in the first entry window, before the day crowds make the bus journey up from Aguas Calientes, is a fundamentally different experience from arriving later.

Returning from Machu Picchu, Cusco deserves two proper days rather than being treated as a staging post. The historic center is one of the best preserved in the Americas, with Spanish baroque churches and palaces built directly onto Inca stone foundations in a layering of civilizations visible on almost every street. The Coricancha, the Inca Temple of the Sun, is the most striking example, its original curved granite walls forming the base of the Santo Domingo Church above.

Cusco also has a good restaurant scene and some of the finest boutique hotels in South America. Belmond Palacio Nazarenas and Inkaterra La Casona are among the best small hotels on the continent, both occupying converted colonial buildings in the historic center within walking distance of the main sites.

The journey from Cusco to Puno runs by train through the altiplano, climbing to over 3,800 meters as the landscape opens out into a vast, treeless plateau with the lake appearing on the horizon. At 3,812 meters above sea level, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable body of water on earth, and its scale is difficult to process from the shore.

The following day is spent on the water. The Uros islands, built and maintained entirely from totora reeds by the Uros people, float on the lake’s surface and have been inhabited for centuries. Further out, Taquile Island rises from the lake with Inca terracing on its slopes and views back across the water to the Bolivian Andes.

Crossing from Peru into Bolivia, La Paz sits in a natural bowl in the Andes at around 3,600 meters, with the satellite city of El Alto spread across the altiplano rim above it. It is the world’s highest capital and one of the most visually dramatic cities in South America, the surrounding peaks rising to over 6,000 meters and visible from almost anywhere in the center.

The Witches’ Market on Calle Melchor Jiménez sells ritual ingredients and traditional remedies that have supplied the city’s curanderos for generations. The Valle de la Luna, a landscape of eroded clay spires on the city’s outskirts, looks like somewhere else entirely. And the Mi Teleférico cable car network, built to connect La Paz with El Alto, gives views over the city and its extraordinary topography that no street-level tour can replicate.

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on earth, covering 11,000 square kilometers of the Bolivian altiplano at 3,656 meters above sea level. The crust is between two and ten meters thick, and beneath it sits the world’s largest lithium reserve.

In the dry season the surface is a blinding white expanse that dissolves the horizon and makes the sky feel twice its normal size. In the wet season a thin layer of water turns the entire flat into a mirror, reflecting the clouds above with an accuracy that makes it impossible to tell where the ground ends and the sky begins.

Beyond the salt flat itself, the surrounding landscape delivers further extremes. The Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve to the south contains active geysers at 5,000 meters, multicolored lagoons tinted red and green by algae and minerals, and populations of pink flamingos feeding at the water’s edge.

A private 4×4 expedition through the reserve, overnighting in lodges on the altiplano, is the way to cover it properly.

The route from Uyuni into Chile crosses the altiplano by 4×4, passing volcanoes, geothermal fields, and the jade-colored Laguna Verde before dropping into San Pedro de Atacama. The drive is one of the great overland crossings in South America.

The Atacama is the driest non-polar desert on earth, and the landscape reflects that in the most extreme terms. The Valle de la Luna, carved by wind and water into salt formations and clay canyons, turns deep red and orange at sunset.

The geysers of El Tatio, at 4,300 meters, are best visited at dawn when the temperature contrast between the ground and the air produces the most dramatic steam columns. And at night, the near-total absence of light pollution and the altitude combine to produce skies that draw astronomers from across the world.

The San Pedro de Atacama Celestial Observatory runs nightly sessions with professional telescopes and guides who know the southern hemisphere sky in detail. It is the kind of experience that recalibrates your sense of scale.

The journey ends in Santiago, and the contrast with everything that preceded it is part of the point. Chile’s capital is a modern city with the Andes visible above the skyline on clear days, a thriving food and wine scene, and neighborhoods like Lastarria and Bellavista that reward an afternoon of exploration.

Two nights here is the right amount of time. The Mercado Central for seafood, a visit to one of the Maipo Valley wineries an hour from the city, and a dinner at one of the better contemporary Chilean restaurants rounds out a journey that has moved through some of the most extreme landscapes on earth. Santiago is a civilized and comfortable place to decompress before the flight home.